Updating firmware on Micron PCI SSD
February 11, 2015

Recently we had some new Dell R720s with Micron P420m SSDs arrive that are due to be installed in a VSAN cluster, during the process we needed to update the firmware on the cards before we commissioned the environment.

Before you go through this process make sure you read all the readme files and understand the whole process, follow this process at your own risk. 

Firstly go to Micron.com/dell. You want to download the three files shown below, the first is the firmware file, second is the utility to gather data from the SSD and update the firmware and lastly is the ESXi driver. 

Once you have these unzip them all and copy the following files to your host.  vmw-esx55-micron-rssdm-2.20.11180.00.vib Binary.ubi MICRON_bootbank_mtip32xx-native_3.9.4-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820.vib Then SSH to your host and run the following command to install RSSDM esxcli software vib install –viburl=vmw-esx55-micron-rssdm-2.20.11180.00.vib Once installed you can use the RSSDM app to get stats from your SSDs.

/opt/micron/bin # ./rssdm -L
 
Drive Id             : 0
Device Name          : mtip_rssd0
Model No             : Micron P420m-MTFDGAR700MAX
Serial No            : 00000000
FW-Rev               : B2085108
Total Size           : 700.15GB
Drive Status         : Drive is in good health
PCI Path (B:D.F)     : 04:00.0
Vendor               : Micron
Temp(C)              : 47
 
Drive Id             : 1
Device Name          : mtip_rssd1
Model No             : Micron P420m-MTFDGAR700MAX
Serial No            : 00000000
FW-Rev               : B2085108
Total Size           : 700.15GB
Drive Status         : Drive is in good health
PCI Path (B:D.F)     : 44:00.0
Vendor               : Micron
Temp(C)              : 51
 
Drive information is retrieved successfully
CMD_STATUS   : Success
STATUS_CODE  : 0
 
Copyright (C) 2014 Micron Technology, Inc.
 
From this info we can see that the cards are running firmware version B2085108, as we are using these hosts with VSAN we need to have them on B210 or greater for it to be supported.
 
Next we will install the newer ESXi driver, run the following command.
 
esxcli software vib install --viburl=MICRON_bootbank_mtip32xx-native_3.9.4-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820.vib  --force
 
This will require a reboot of the host to take effect. Once your host is rebooted you can check that the latest driver is installed.
 
esxcli software vib list | grep mtip32xx
 
mtip32xx-native                3.9.4-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820             MICRON    VMwareCertified   2015-02-05
 
Now all that's left to do is to update the firmware on both cards. Use RSSDM -L to determine the drive IDs of your cards, for mine it's 0 and 1.
 
/opt/micron/bin # ./rssdm -T /tmp/SP\ 145.03.08\ P420m\ FW\ Binary.ubi -n 1
Trying to update for drive 1, from current firmware B208.51.08 to B212.05.08.
Are you sure you want to continue(Y|N):Y
Unified Image update for drive 1 will take a few seconds to complete.
Please wait
........................................................................
Drive Id     : 1
Unified image update operation completed successfully.
Power cycle the server for the downloaded Unified Image to take effect.
CMD_STATUS   : Success
STATUS_CODE  : 0
Copyright (C) 2014 Micron Technology, Inc
Post reboot check the status of the cards.
/opt/micron/bin # ./rssdm -L
Drive Id             : 0
Device Name          : mtip_rssd0
Model No             : Micron P420m-MTFDGAR700MAX
Serial No            : 00000000
FW-Rev               : B2120508
Total Size           : 700.15GB
Drive Status         : Drive is in good health
PCI Path (B:D.F)     : 04:00.0
Vendor               : Micron
Temp(C)              : 46
Drive Id             : 1
Device Name          : mtip_rssd1
Model No             : Micron P420m-MTFDGAR700MAX
Serial No            : 00000000
FW-Rev               : B2120508
Total Size           : 700.15GB
Drive Status         : Drive is in good health
PCI Path (B:D.F)     : 44:00.0
Vendor               : Micron
Temp(C)              : 49
Drive information is retrieved successfully
CMD_STATUS   : Success
STATUS_CODE  : 0
Copyright (C) 2014 Micron Technology, Inc.
 
Once you have done this for both cards, give your host a reboot. After the hosts have rebooted according to the documentation you will need to 'secure erase' the cards. This bit is a PIA if you have data on the drives (you will need to migrate it off or in the case of VSAN - delete the disk group). Again, SSH to your hosts and run the following command, (RSSDM will give you the drive number and the password is ffff.
 
rssdm –X –n -p 
After the cards have been erased your good to go. Hopefully the process of erasing the cards wont be required again in the future as it will add some time to the overall process but at the end of the day I'm sure it needs to be done for a reason.